


All the Dishes Rattle in the Cupboard When the Elephants Arrive (Loose Affiliation, Part 3)

by spuffyduds



Series: Loose Affiliation [3]
Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-05 22:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set after the Season One finale, "Letting Go." Goes slightly AU in that they don't take the trip shown in "North."</p>
    </blockquote>





	All the Dishes Rattle in the Cupboard When the Elephants Arrive (Loose Affiliation, Part 3)

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the Season One finale, "Letting Go." Goes slightly AU in that they don't take the trip shown in "North."

Ray's pretty much moved back home after a couple of weeks, but he still checks in on Fraser every day, makes sure the guy gets a meal or two, that he's going back in for checkups and physical therapy and all that. Not wasting away or doing his weird smiley Canadian version of brooding. And things seem to be going okay. The talk about repairing his dad's cabin is dying away a little. Which, honestly? Is okay with Ray. He was trying to be nice, trying to put things back together. But cabin-building sounds cold, and boring, and he would really prefer that Benny not find out that when he'd said of _course_ he had construction experience he was actually talking about a model of Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home he'd built in fourth grade. Out of popsicle sticks.

So today he's checked in and Benny's fine, and they decide they're gonna give Dief a short walk—the wolf's not up for a ten-mile jaunt yet any more than Fraser is--and get some pizza. They're walking up to the door and arguing over which joint to go to—"I'm sorry, Ray, I know you like the waitress at Delio's, but their health-department score, while still the same letter grade, is in fact three points lower than Luigi's, and—" "Benny, you _lick mud_ and you're worried about _three points?_"

And apparently they both reach for the doorknob, because Ray's hand which is expecting cold smooth metal lands on the back of Benny's hand instead. Smooth yes, cold no. Really startlingly hot in fact. Just—startling in general, expecting doorknob and getting hand. Shouldn't be, really, he's always grabbing Benny's hand, usually to keep him from falling off a roof. Twice a week or so. But. Not doorknob. Hand. Huh.

Strange thing is, neither of them's moving. Both just standing there. Ray keeps his face pointed straight ahead but flicks a peripheral glance at Benny. Who's got his face pointed straight ahead. There they are. Standing. Weird.

Ray decides, quite firmly, that this is an awkward peculiar moment and it is now _over_, that now he is laughing and pulling his hand back and letting Benny open the door and they are going out. To Delio's, dammit. Because he has a sudden _serious_ need to check out that waitress. Yep, hand pulled back and they're right out the door and down the stairs.

Except they're not. Still standing there. Eyes front.

Ray's body is not following orders. Ray's body has totally disconnected from his brain. Except that he's still really _aware_ of it, of his other hand curled in a tight fist in his coat pocket. Really tight. Possibly nails breaking the skin, there. Ow. He wonders what Benny's other hand is doing. Probably behind his back, at parade rest.

He takes a quick trip up into his brain to see what the hell is going on. It is possible, he thinks, that he has had a stroke.

So, today his brain looks like one of those security-central rooms in a spy movie. One of the ones with twenty-seven tv screens hooked up to cameras all through the building that our heroes are sneaking around in.

And a few of the cameras are angled at the doorways to Benny's building. Because, when you're a cop in a mob town, some little part of you is always thinking about the entrances and exits. Most of the shots, though, are of the two of them. Frozen. Staring at the door from eight inches away. Dief in between them, swiveling his head, confused.

There's this one screen, though. You know how there's a comic-relief scene in the spy movie, sometimes? Where the heroes manage to slip past the cameras because the dumbass security guys are using one screen to catch up on their soap operas? Or play Doom?

_That_ screen. Not doorways but not comic relief either. That screen is showing a porn movie.

Just a quick clip, looped. Just a few seconds, but it's the two of them, Benny's narrow bed. There's his red Mountie coat tossed and arcing through the air—kind of an arty shot, really, nice—and in those few seconds Benny is doing things that are…creative. UnCanadian. Jesus. Loop ends and starts again, over and over, flying coat and inventive Benny. _Jesus_. Really, really have to let go of hand now. Really.

Ray flees this very scary security central porno theater portion of his brain and lands back in his body, which is doing strange things while still standing there. His _knees_ feel weird. Hot and fizzly, like somebody lit sparklers behind his kneecaps. And, oh, not actually the only place that feels that way.

That's what finally gets him moving, because _no_, that is _not happening_.

"On second thought!" he says. "Other plans! Forgot! Got to help Ma. With. Thing!"

"Right!" Benny says in a high tight voice, and nods up and down a _lot_, fast. "Good son! You go. And! Do that."

Then Ray's out the door and down the hall, and it's actually hard to manage the stairs. Because it's hard to stand upright. Because it's—oh, _hell_.

He makes it to the Riv, slams the door, sits there for a minute. And things are not calming down, things are not going back to normal, the sparklers are still there and spreading and NO. He leans forward and finds himself closing his teeth, hard, on the top of his steering wheel. He's probably leaving marks, and he's gonna have to hunt up a replacement, because how do you explain _that_, but it's helping, just getting his teeth hard into something is making the shivers die down.

He starts to relax, a little. Until he realizes: Jesus Christ. I am sitting in front of Benny's apartment _biting my car_.

 

\--END--


End file.
